Someday I'll Forget
by michael1812
Summary: In the far future, Aeryn sees the love of her life age and whither and suffer and there's nothing she can do about it, only hold his hand as he lingers between past and present, and memories and nightmares...


"It's not your fault, John."

The frailty of his trembling hands was lost on him.

The fact that he was standing was a miracle in itself.

"John, please sit down..." Aeryn said, begging with the shiver in her voice, trembling like the old man's spotted hands.

"I had her." he said, looking at the empty space and the strength that used to be there.

"John..." Aeryn said, but whatever she could've said would have only made things worse.

The way he acknowledged her presence only made things worse.

He was still there, but not here. He was somewhere he shouldn't be, somewhere no-one should ever be, inside a memory, a nightmare.

The human stood in the middle of the abandoned cargobay in almost total darkness.

Small lights pertruded the layer of cold smoke that lingered in the corners of the chamber.

Aeryn had found him here in the exact same position as she had more than 50 cycles ago, when the heavy door swung open, pushing away the billowing smoke.

His hair was greyer now, his shape smaller and hunched, no longer the handsome, young man he once was.

There was a long time when he still did his best to stay in shape, running circles through Moya's corridors every morning, waving the DRD's hello as he passed them by, and even doing exercises in this very cargobay, but the last time was cycles ago.

He had stopped trying to evade old age, for it had come.

Her touch startled him, like a sudden touch of ice to his cheek, but then he accepted her soft hands laying down on his shoulders, holding him.

Aeryn slowly continued.

"I am here." she said, her voice as beautiful as it had always been.

Her face as beautiful as ever; a few wrinkles and one lock of grey hair dangling down the side of her face being the only way old age had affected her, and her joints, and her eyes filled with ancient sadness, only made worse by the embrace of her husband.

"I dropped her." he said to her, putting his arms around her. "I did."

"No," Aeryn said, but the old man kept on staring out in front of him, paralyzed by guilt.

He couldn't feel anymore. He couldn't think.

"I dropped her."

"No." Aeryn spoke, tightening her embrace. "You didn't!"

"I did, Aeryn. It's my fault."

Aeryn pushed him away, keeping him at an arm's length to gaze into his stricken eyes.

Tears were flowing uncontrollably down her face, yet Crichton's face was unchanged, as if he was drifting, sleepwalking, yet he gazed directly into her eyes, nothing to question his sanity.

"It was an accident." she said to him, begging him to listen, begging him to stop. "It was many cycles ago. She fell..."

"I dropped her...I KILLED HER!"

"Now you stop it! You stop doing this right now! Don't even think it! Don't even...don't even..."

Yet the old man turned his gaze away in shame, crumbling within her hands without ever letting go.

His body and clothing sinking into a pile of man, yet before the old man fell down completely Aeryn grabbed him, the love of her life, her husband, the father of her children, the saviour of the galaxy...

The man who had saved her...the man who had made her the woman she is now...

The man who told her she could be more.

"I'm here." she said to him.

She felt his grip on her shoulder, he grabbed her again, like a man waking up from a dream.

"Where am I?" he cried out with a hurt voice. "What am I doing here? I don't want to be here!"

There was a reason why they had emptied this cargo bay, a reason why they had locked it shut.

She smiled when he focused on her face, welcoming him back with all the love she could give him.

"Hey, baby..." he said to her.

"Hey..."

"Is it time for breakfast?"

She helped him upright, supporting his back, and held his hand as they both walked out of the cargobay, out of the smoke and death and darkness.

"I could really use a good steak by now." the old man said to his wife. "A good, juicy steak. Do we have any?"

"No, John." she smiled. "You know you can't."

"Aw, well."

She never bothered to tell him the time of day anymore, or what food she had prepared for him in the mornings.

His lucid moments were becoming shorter every day, but she always held his hand.

"What day is it today?" he asked.

Aeryn looked straight ahead, a single tear rolling down her cheek.

The old man kissed her forehead with an ignorant smile, oblivious to the nightmare they had just revisited.

"I believe it's Wednesday." she spoke, crying.

It's what she always told him.


End file.
